The Women of Steel program gives women in our union the tools and skills we need to fight for and achieve equality and take leadership roles in our workplaces and in the USW.
Steelworkers pride ourselves on being the health and safety union. Women of Steel are pointing to hazards and health issues they face as women workers. Let’s make women’s health and safety issues a priority for action!
Bargaining language and other tools to take action against domestic violence, harassment and other forms of violence.
At the largest ever International/ National Women’s Conference in Toronto in 2018, women from right across the union came together to build a bold plan of action to help guide our union and our activism at work and in our communities.
Long-time government policies and deeply rooted social beliefs have put Canada’s Indigenous women, girls, and Two Spirit/LGBTQ+ people at greater risk of violence. USW helped in the call for a National inquiry, because an injury to one is an injury to all, and because Steelworkers and our family members are among the missing and murdered.
Formed in 1987, the District 6 Women of Steel Committee played a key role in developing the Women of Steel course for the entire union. The committee included, among others, Josephine Urh, Colette Murphy, Gaye Lamb, Marlene Gow, Pearl Henry and Shirley Brown. Warsaw Apteka PL
Olive Richer and Marie Emery made history in the 1970s at Inco Ltd. in Sudbury, winning grievances against managers who vowed, “That’ll be the day, when women work in the smelter!” They went to work in the smelter as “furnacemen’s helpers,” then set up a women’s committee to further champion women’s rights in the workplace.
Statistics Canada released its December 2015 Labour Force Survey results, and while they appear to show improvement, the Canadian Labour Congress warned that our medium-term economic situation is still precarious. 2015 was a rocky year for jobs, and trends show 2016 could be even worse without government action. Over 2015, employment only grew by 0.9 […]
Women’s activism and involvement in the union had begun earlier, particularly during the feminist wave of the 1970s and 1980s. Deirdre Gallagher, a staff representative at the Canadian National Office in the early 1980s, developed Changing Faces of Unionism, a course aimed at breaking down workplace barriers and encouraging women to become active members and […]
